Confirmed: Zimmerman Shooting apparent Assassination Attempt

Matthew Apperson is the suspect in the assassination attempt on George Zimmerman

The treatment by the old media of the assassination attempt on George Zimmerman has been astounding in its willful spin.  It is clear that George Zimmerman was attacked without provocation by a mentally unstable man who was obsessed with him.  He narrowly missed being killed after attempting to escape the situation, and there are numerous witnesses that corroborate his version of events.   Apperson has been arrested on three extremely serious charges.  They are:

Aggravated Assault with a deadly weapon

Aggravated battery with a deadly weapon

Firing a deadly missile into an occupied conveyance

Under Florida law, these charges have a mandatory minimum 20 year sentence.

An unbiased headline would read: Suspect arrested in Zimmerman assassination attempt.      Here are some of the headlines from the old media:

From abcnews.com:


Matthew Apperson Accused of 'Intentionally' Shooting at George Zimmerman's Car

From cnn.com:

Man charged with shooting into George Zimmerman's truck, Florida police say
 From nbcnews.com:

George Zimmerman Shooting: Matthew Apperson Charged

From cbsnews.com:

Man who shot at George Zimmerman arrested

From the orlandosentinel.com:

Matthew Apperson arrested after shooting involving George Zimmerman

 From the Palmbeachpost.com:

Man accused of firing at George Zimmerman arrested
From baynews9.com:

Matthew Apperson arrested in George Zimmerman shooting


You have to go to a paper based in England to find the following:
 
 From the dailymail.co.uk:
Man who shot at George Zimmerman told cops: 'I hope I got him this time' ...as he is charged with aggravated assault

But even the the Daily Mail mischaracterizes the assassination attempt as a "confrontation".

A man who shot at George Zimmerman during a confrontation earlier this week along a busy central Florida road has been arrested. 

I do not think that most people would characterize a mentally unbalanced man who stalks a famous person, who attempts to kill the famous person, and who says  "I shot George Zimmerman" immediately afterward and " "I hope I got him this time" to police later, as a "confrontation".   A confrontation implies fault on both sides.   George Zimmerman appears, from the witness accounts, merely to have attempted to flee from Apperson.   

Kenneth Cornell says that Apperson  approached him immediately after the shooting:

Kenneth Cornell told WESH 2’s Gail Paschall-Brown that he called 911 after the alleged shooter approached him and said, “I shot George Zimmerman.” Cornell said the alleged shooter then got on the phone with dispatch and explained what happened.

The media are trying to spin this event to blame George Zimmerman for an assassination attempt on his life, but facts, as they say, are stubborn things.

The police investigation found exactly what a commenter at the Washington Post reported:  According to a commenter at the washingtonpost.com:

WillB2

5/13/2015 11:01 AM MST

It is a very busy road and dozens saw the events. They were interviewed last night on local (Channel 10) TV. According to them, Apperson was chasing Zimmerman, waving a gun and yelling out of the window of his car. Zimmerman was trying to flee. Zimmerman then made a U turn in an attempt to escape, but Apperson made a U Turn as well, drew up beside Zimmerman and fired into his car. Apperson is now facing the mandatory 20 years in prison and Zimmerman won't be seeing him again until 2035.

George Zimmerman has to be one of the most reviled and maligned men in America.  His sin is that he defended his life at a time when the Obama administration was looking for an incident to inflame black voters.

Most of the articles report Apperson's account of previous encounters as fact.

Some of the most biased reporting  is from ABC;  they write:

This wasn't the first run-in between Zimmerman and Apperson. In September 2014, the Associated Press reported that Apperson was stopped at a light in Lake Mary when a passenger in the car next to him started yelling, unprovoked.

The truck's driver, who Apperson believed to be Zimmerman, then reportedly said to Apperson, "Do you know who I am?"

Apperson pulled over, he said, and the truck followed him, blocking him in. Apperson claimed both men threatened to shoot and kill him, the AP reported. Apperson said he called police, but the truck was gone when officers arrived.

Two days later, Apperson said he saw Zimmerman outside his office and was worried Zimmerman was waiting for him, the AP reported.

What they ignore, is that all of the above was completely unsubstantiated, other than by Matthew Apperson, who we now know has mental problems. 

It was not a "run-in between Zimmerman and Apperson" but a stalking of Zimmerman by Apperson.   Only one reporter asked Zimmerman for his side of the event; that reporter did not publish Zimmerman's version.

An assassination is " to kill (someone, such as a famous or important person) usually for political reasons"  The definition seems to fit the attack on George Zimmerman rather well.

For an effective and readable, fact based analysis of the Zimmerman trial, Massad Ayoob has done the best job.


©2015 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
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